Expectations, in the form of predictions about the future, are rarely at the forefront of our ethical thinking.
Yet as the 18th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham argued, disruption is inherently ethically challenging because people build their lives around their expectations. We make decisions, investments and plans based on our expectations, and adapt our preferences around them.
When those expectations are violated, we can experience not only material losses, but losses to our autonomy and “self efficacy” — or our perceived ability to navigate the world.
This plays out in several ways in the context of vaccine mandates.
For example, it’s not a crime to have strange beliefs and odd values, so long as you still follow the relevant rules. But this creates problems when a new type of regulation is imposed on an occupation.
A person with strong anti-vaccination beliefs (or even just vaccine hesitancy) arguably should never become a nurse or doctor. But they may well expect their views to be a non-issue if they are a footballer or a construction worker.
While there are powerful ethical reasons supporting vaccine mandates, the shattering of people’s life expectations nevertheless carries profound costs. Some people may be removed from careers they built their lives around. Others may have lost the sense their future is able to be predicted, and their lives are in their control.